It was a thick wooden door that the hallway ended in. As the family mentioned, door had three locks on it and each of them was padlocked. Someone clearly did not want what was inside to come out. Ever.

The story was that, three generations back, a member of the housekeeping staff had been killed on this floor. Her ghost used to haunt the house and when the family could not handle it anymore, they called a priest.

The priest figured that the ghost could never be banished from the house as she was forever stuck to the house till eternity but she could be restricted to just staying inside a particular area. They locked her up inside this room.

There wasn’t the slightest trouble from her for the past one hundred years.

But things had changed.

The family could now hear her singing, dancing or sometimes even calling out to them.

They had approached me last week and wanted me to help them.

Somehow, I was not very sure I could.

The Milton Kids grew up hearing the story of the spirit locked away in the room. So, no one ever dared to bother with the room.

The spirit somehow had stayed contained and mute inside the room all this while.

That changed last week. The cleaning lady was mopping the floor and was close to the door, when she heard footsteps. Half expecting the butler to be the source for the sound, she turned around but there was no one in the hall.

It was then that she realized that the sound came from inside the room. She too had heard stories about the room too. If it was true, then that meant that the spirit had woken up.

She moved in closer to the door and put her ear on the door trying to see if she could hear anything more. She stood like that for a minute before someone spoke in her ear saying, “What is it?”

She fainted.

Initially everyone had thought that the cleaning lady had imagined the whole episode. But soon more occurrences happened.

They could hear her singing in the evenings. At night sometimes she used to cry. She was surely active but whatever it was, the padlocks on the door kept her locked inside.

Now that put me in a dilemma. I cannot cast the spirit out without actually seeing and interacting with it at the same time I wasn’t sure if opening the doors was a wise choice.

I placed my hand on the lock and stood there weighing the idea in my mind.

I heard a wailing sound from inside.

I froze.

Then for the longest times, there was no sound from inside.

Then a female voice spoke, “Have you come for me?” She started laughing and went quiet.

I turned around and asked the helpers to break the chained padlock. They looked hesitant but I stared at them and repeated myself.

Realizing that it might not be wise to disobey me, they shuffled towards the door and started hammering at the lock.

She started laughing even more loud from the inside. The helpers were clearly shivering but continued trying to break open the lock.

Her laughter turned into a guttural voice hurling abuses at us. The minute the last lock broke open, the room fell silent.

The helpers moved away from the door. I pushed the doors open and stepped in.

The room was filled with cobwebs. It looked like a bedroom that had ancient artifacts. At first there seemed to be nobody inside but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, I saw a figure sitting on the bed looking out the window.

“Who are you? Why don’t you leave this place?” I asked

“Loneliness. How strange a feeling.” The sweetest voice I had ever heard replied.

When she turned around to face me, it found it very difficult to breathe. Not because she looked like scarred and scary, like I had imagined her to be, but because she turned out to be the most beautiful woman I had ever laid my eyes upon.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“You know very well who I am. You have heard the stories about me.” she laughed as she replied.

The smile melted my heart. I felt a rush of blood to my head and could feel my cheeks blushing.

Very unnatural, considering it was a supernatural entity that I was falling for.

“Why don’t you leave this house?” I asked trying to sound authoritative.

“Do you really want me to? You don’t, I know.”

“The family staying at this house wants you to.”

“Can I come with you then?” She looked up at me, her eyes fluttering.

I felt my heart being knot inside into a small ball.

“Yes, you may.”

I left that house that night with a spirit. A spirit, who I was in love with.